


Tiny Hopes

by CmonCmon



Series: Raising Warriors [11]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Clone Mom and Clone Dad, Everyone lives, F/M, Fix-It, Post Third Battle of Kamino, Rancor Feels, Soft Wars, Star Wars AU - Soft Wars, That means everyone darn it, snuggles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25966549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CmonCmon/pseuds/CmonCmon
Summary: Colt's still laid up in medical, but that doesn't mean he's stopped paying attention.
Relationships: Colt (Star Wars)/Shaak Ti
Series: Raising Warriors [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1835518
Comments: 58
Kudos: 328
Collections: Open Source Soft Wars





	Tiny Hopes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Project0506](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/gifts), [Primarybufferpanel (ArwenLune)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/gifts).



> The one fix-it I couldn't include in Tipping Points
> 
> Per usual! Read Projie's Soft Wars and these fics wouldn't be what they are without PBP and Jac with a secret AO3 for helping make them better, softer, and much cleaner!

For all the bloody battlefields he’d fought on, Colt had never spent an overnight in medical. He’d had his share of injuries, but days off his feet were a luxury their time at the front had not afforded. He was a commander. There was always work to do.

Colt ordered Hammer to bring him the datapads that were accumulating in his office. Anything less than a direct order and Hammer would have sided with Blitz and Havoc, arguing that Colt’s only job was to recover. Unfortunately, Colt could not make his body heal any faster than Pots had it working, and aside from the haze of the painkillers the medic insisted he needed, Colt was bored out of his mind.

That was why it had taken two nights to catch something off in the rotation schedule.

He’d been on the verge of dozing again when one of his men poked his head into the infirmary and walked out with one of the three available medics. Colt wouldn’t have thought anything of it if it hadn’t happened repeatedly over the past day.

Whatever was going on was not on any schedule he had access to, and had been kept off the comms. Colt trusted his men, respected and cared for his men, but their base had been attacked, their little brothers had been endangered. 

Colt couldn’t allow them to keep secrets. Not now.

He pushed himself out of the bed, careful not to disturb the mess of bacta patches still trying to close the wound and heal the burns to his chest. The rest of the damage was better, but Colt still felt like he’d been thrown across a room and then dumped unceremoniously onto a duracrete floor, which according to video, he had been, twice. 

“Where are they going?” He still sounded like he was fresh off the battlefield, but Pots had reported there would be no lasting damage to his throat. 

“Sir.” The junior medic was a shiny, a rarity for Rancor these days, but the medical unit had been hard-hit before they’d come to Kamino. Pots had seen to fixing that. “I don’t know what you mean, Commander. But you should be resting, sir.”

“Help me get dressed and tell me where they are.” It was not a request. Colt knew his lack of patience was the dull ache in his chest and his mounting worry, but he would apologize later.

The shiny, he was sure, had been told that medics superseded rank, but it was one thing to know it and another thing to say the words out loud to your Commander.

“Yes sir. I’ll walk you, but we’re walking slow.”

Colt made a rough sound of agreement. 

He could be reasonable. He also wasn’t sure he could walk any other way.

*

Colt felt sick. It was a combination of the destruction he hadn’t seen or appreciated in the heat of battle and the aching burn in his chest and back paired with the creeping dizziness of overexertion.

“We’re almost there, sir.” Baar, the Shiny, had a panicked grip on his good side arm and looked increasingly like he was regretting his choice to follow orders. “But maybe a rest first?”

 _No._

Colt was not reckless, but he was determined. If there was something happening on his watch, he wanted to know about it. Colt shook his head before realizing that was a bad idea.

“Easy, sir, please.” Baar dragged Colt’s arm over his shoulder. “Pots is gonna karking _kill_ me.”

Colt laughed at that, or as close as he could get as his voice returned. “I’d protect you, vod’ika.”

“Know you would, sir.” 

The earnest sentiment was almost too much for Colt. He wanted to. He wanted to protect Baar. Protect his men. Protect his brothers. His General. 

Instead, he’d needed to be saved by cadets who had risked their own lives to do it.

“Here we are, sir.” Baar stopped by an unmarked door on yet another plain white-and-glass hall. Colt knew they were in the halls at the base of the embryo towers. There was damage to one of the domes and a timeline for repairs. Why that would need his men, particularly the Rancor medics, Colt didn’t know.

Baar tapped in the passcode, and Colt noted it without hesitation. 

The room was meant for tower maintenance or facilities, but other than a few pieces of equipment shoved against the walls, it was fully converted. Small gear crates were attached with lashings of stickiplast to long rolling work tables, all of which must have been borrowed from somewhere else. All the lights were dim and some vode walked slowly between the rows.

“What is this?” Colt asked Baar, but the shiny was interrupted by a thready cry.

Pots glared over his shoulder. “Karking hells, Baar. I told you to make sure to dose him on time.” 

The medic turned, and Colt saw the source of the cry. An ik’aad in the crook of Pots’ arm. Smaller than a First Cycle, so small he should still be safe in his tube.

Colt would have staggered if his arm wasn’t still slung over Baar’s shoulder. “How?”

“Sit him down before he falls down,” Pots grumbled, and Blitz jogged over to help get Colt into the nearest open chair.

The ARC Commander swatted Baar on the back and nodded towards the door with a glare. Baar didn’t need to be told twice. 

“Sir.” It was nag, scold, and apology all at once. “We have it handled.” Blitz knelt down next to the chair, one hand kneading the back of Colt’s neck as he rested his commander’s forehead against his own. “They survived. They are safe. It’s you we’re worried about.”

“The reports.” It was a croak, but only in part because his throat was still healing. “The reports were about the karking dome.”

“I know, sir.” Blitz straightened but kept a hand on Colt’s neck, still kneading. “Most of the tubes were empty, thank the stars. Some of the lower layers were cracked by debris. We stepped in.”

Colt eased himself back in the chair. “How many?”

“Two batches.” Blitz grinned, the manic grin he shared with Havoc and pretended he didn’t. “Just property damage, the kaminiise said. We’re taking care of the problem for them.”

Two batches meant sixty-four ik’aade. Which explained the makeshift everything. His brothers had been doing this for two days without him even noticing.

Pots came over and shoved an ik’aad into the arm on his uninjured side. The littlest little Colt had ever held by lightyears. They looked different in the tube, more like a someday-brother than a living, breathing ik’aad. The tiny brother frowned up at him, waving a fist and huffing.

Colt laughed, which pulled at his bad side, but he didn’t care. The sound drew a little, wry smile from the ik’aad and Colt couldn’t help but carefully trace the tiny fist with his fingertip.

“See?” Blitz gave Colt’s neck a comforting squeeze. “You and Havoc were in Med. Hammer, Trib and I went to the General. She cleared us to rotate off, found a space for us to get set up in. Even told us how her kind care for their own at this size. Pots wrote up a list of requisitions, and we got to work.”

His men had stepped in, protected their most vulnerable little brothers. Colt shifted the ik’aad carefully, getting a pleased little gurgle at the change. “They’re really okay?”

“Pots swears it.” Blitz nodded. “Should know. We call him every time one of ‘em moves funny.”

“He’s not wrong.” Pots came back over to kick Blitz and hand him a different ik’aad, who Blitz automatically cradled against his shoulder. “You think this lot never heard a case of the hiccups before.”

Colt had never heard an ik’aad hiccup. I was absolutely certain he’d be calling for a medic the first time any one of them did something he wasn’t sure they ought to. 

“Can they..” Colt was going to finish the thought but a tiny hand fastened on to his finger with surprising power. ”Dral, ik’aad,” Colt cooed, waving his finger like he was trying to escape the hold. “Can they grow like this?”

Pots shrugged. “Probably.” 

That earned the medic a glare. _Probably_ was not an answer. 

“The Kaminiise keep a cadet in a tube to skip this part.” He gestured to the two vode cuddling ik’aade. “There’s no training value, and they get all the stimulation they need in the tube with software. This is about the age a nat-born human deca-- is born. We match that level, they’ll be good, possibly better for the contact.”

“But?” Colt wanted to believe everything would turn out perfectly, but he knew he had to ask. 

“But this is experimental,” Pots said as he took a pair of bottles from Trib as he walked by. The bottle was still warm when he handed it to Colt. “Same nutrition they’d get in the tube, took some bottles the nat-borns use out of the 501’s humanitarian relief crates.”

“And this all got ok’ed?” Colt needed to hear the words. He trusted his men, but he needed to reassure himself. If there was anything left to do, Colt would drag himself from one end of Tipoca City to the other to see it through. 

“We told her, and the General handled everything.” Blitz held just the end of the bottle in the tips of his fingers and let the ik’aad try to hold it for himself. So all brothers were determined to try to handle everything on their own. They really were decanted stubborn.

Because he had been distracted, Colt got a sharp kick from the ik’aad in his arms. “Yes, sir,” Colt teased, before copying the way Blitz held the bottle. The tiny brother in his arms might grow up to be a Commander, or an ARC, or a medic. The ik’aad was so small, those possible futures felt far away. Colt felt a wave of emotion threatening, and tried to blink his eyes clear.

Maybe his breathing gave him away, but Blitz looked over, his own eyes shining. For all the vod was a hard man, Blitz felt deeply. Colt swallowed down his own tears and nodded to his brother.

“Did good.” Colt wanted to say more, but he wasn’t sure how to say the words. Colt knew his men would protect their own, would protect each other. Colt was so grateful they could do it without him if they had to. Colt sighed, setting the bottle down to cradle the ik’aad in his arms, a comforting, warm lump. The big gold eyes slipped closed and Colt was mesmerized.

“Think he’s dozing off,” Pots whispered Blitz. Colt looked up to see both brothers watching him, not the ik’aad. “Oh, no, not yet. Still got some go left in him.” 

“Kark you.” Colt glared, but there wasn’t any heat in it.

“Language, Commander,” Pots scolded.

“If these ik’aade grow up swearing like battlefield medics, we’ll know who to blame.” Blitz grinned, shifting the little in his arms up onto his shoulder for a burp any cadet would be proud of.

Once he was back at full capacity, Colt was going to have a scheduling nightmare on his hands, but it was only fair every willing Rancor trooper got a turn with the ik’aade.

**Author's Note:**

> I had the damage to the embryo tower in my notes from the episode, but I didn't have any way to address it in the other fic, so it got it's own stand alone fix-it.
> 
> Baar is a new Rancor OC because Tals and Web were both busy in the battle so it didn't make sense to have either of them be medics. At some point, I have to stop making OCs.


End file.
